By Chris Taylor
NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you are selling a home in the U.S., you may wonder when to put it on the market and get the best price.
The answer? The prime moment is now.
Specifically, the week of April 14-20 is optimal to sell a home nationwide, according to a new report from Realtor.com. By crunching a variety of factors including past price patterns along with the amount of inventory and buyer activity, researchers say this early spring sweet spot is the ideal time to strike.
“The best week is here, and conditions will remain favorable for sellers from now into the summer,” says Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com.
Those positive forces include above-average prices in mid-April, which are 1% higher than a typical week, and 10.4% higher than the start of the year. Given national median prices, that works out to homes priced at $7,400 higher than an average week and $34,000 more compared to the beginning of 2024.
Market demand is also high, with mid-April listings getting 22.8% more views than usual. This prime week also boasts a 17% faster selling pace.
There are also almost one-quarter fewer price reductions than normal in mid-April, indicating that sellers typically have the upper hand at this time of year.
Of course, high interest rates make the real estate landscape more complex. Stubborn inflation numbers mean that the Federal Reserve held off on rate cuts, which means mortgage rates will stay elevated for the time being.
Thirty-year fixed mortgages are currently averaging around 7%, according to financial information site Bankrate.com. That affects affordability and could rain on everyone’s parade.
If your house is ready to hit the market, be sure to hustle. Otherwise, getting a home prepped for sale could take some time – fixing it up, hiring the right agent or taking great pictures to get more eyeballs on Zillow (NASDAQ:).
Here are a few tips for sellers trying to get the best price.
SOONER IS BETTER
For sellers at least, the smart move is to get the jump on the spring season.
As we get into May and June, “we will see more and more listings hit the market, and there will be more competition,” advises Hale. “There is a large buyer pool earlier in the year, but those numbers will drop off as they find places to buy.”
In fact, for buyers, the savvier approach is to wait until fall, if you can, Hale says. By then, market dynamics will have shifted in buyers’ favor – and, hopefully, mortgage rates will have started to finally come back down to Earth.
Bankrate.com chief financial analyst Greg McBride predicts mortgage rates will be in the region of 6.25-6.4% by the end of 2024.
DO NOT EXPECT BIG CHANGES IN FEES – YET
You may have heard about the recent lawsuit settlement with the National Association of Realtors, which should upend the world of traditional 6% agent fees. Since that amount typically comes out of the seller’s end, it is almost like a ‘tax’ on any home sale.
This settlement will presumably create more competition among agents and put downward pressure on that 6% figure. However, new rules don’t take effect until July.
“We are not going to see any dramatic changes yet,” says Tomasz Piskorski, a finance professor at Columbia Business School who studies the housing market. “It will be more of a slow-motion decline over time in real estate agent fees.”
One tip from Piskorski: Sellers in hot markets should try to negotiate their way out of covering buyer’s agent fees, which could at least save them around 3% on the deal.
THINK LOCAL, LOCAL, LOCAL
While April 14-20 is the ideal selling week using ‘national’ figures, that is just a composite figure. In reality, all real estate is local, which means should dig into the conditions of your own market.
In New York City and Los Angeles, for instance, the best time to list actually started in late March. But in other cities like Memphis and Indianapolis, the ideal period does not kick off until May.
To research your own area, check out the Realtor.com report here.
Generally speaking, sellers should be encouraged by prices right now. The median sales price for existing homes in February was $384,500, according to the National Association of Realtors, up 5.7% year-over-year.
The flip side of that, of course, is a rough moment for buyers.
“Prices continue to be high, and mortgage rates are still at a high point,” says Hale. “So finding a home that meets your needs, and falls within your budget, is a real challenge right now.”
